State Briefs 2/22/08

Friday

PEORIA - A 3-year-old Head Start student was accidently left alone on a school bus for more than three hours Wednesday afternoon, when the temperature averaged 13 degrees.

Tytavis Alexander said he "cried" and "slept" while he was trapped on the bus because "my teacher wasn't on the bus."

At one point he tried to get off the bus, "but the door was closed," he said.

Alexander boarded the bus at about noon under the watchful eye of his grandmother, Diana Alexander.

But when his mother, LaKisha Butler, arrived at the Webster Center, to pick him about 3:30 p.m., she was told by his teacher that he wasn't there and hadn't been there all day.

A few minutes later she was ushered into the school's office and saw her "son wrapped up in a blanket." School officials admitted that he'd accidently been left on the bus.

Tytavis was upset, but otherwise unhurt. Butler took him to Methodist Medical Center just to be sure and was told his immune system was low, but otherwise he was going to be OK.

The Department of Children and Family Services is conducting an investigation into the incident because the agency broke one of the department's rules regarding transportation of children by licensed day-care centers.

That rule says: "The driver shall inspect the vehicle after each use to assure that no child is left in the vehicle."

Journal Star, Peoria.

Teacher gets 7 years for trying to seduce student

PEORIA - A former Manual High School teacher apologized to her family, her community and her students Thursday before she was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for attempting to entice a student to have sex with her.

Jodi Church's sentence is below the mandatory minimum of 10 years, a move made possible by federal prosecutors who asked U.S. District Judge Joe McDade for the break, given some information Church had provided in another prosecution.

Church logged onto MySpace in December 2006 and tried to persuade the Manual student to have sex with her, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Keith said. Investigators had obtained a log of the chat session. From the log, it didn't appear the boy, who was not a student of Church's, was interested, but she continued talking to him for a short time before stating they could just be friends.

Church, 27, has another case pending in Peoria County Circuit Court, where she is charged with criminal sexual assault for allegedly having sex with another Manual student. That charge carries the possibility of a prison term of up to 15 years.

She also was sentenced to a lifetime term of supervised release, the federal version of probation. While on supervised release, she must register as a sex offender, consent to having her computer monitored, is banned from looking at sexually explicit material and can not have unsupervised visits with children under 18.

Journal Star, Peoria.

Long-time publisher, son-in-law of F.F. McNaughton, dies

PEKIN – Donald N. Soldwedel, 83, and son-in-law of the late Pekin newspaper mogul F.F. McNaughton, died Wednesday after battling Parkinson’s Disease for nearly two decades.

Soldwedel, who was born in Pekin in 1924, moved with his wife Luda (McNaughton) Soldwedel in 1953 to Yuma, Ariz. in order to manage a newspaper, The Sun, that was one of many papers owned by his father-in-law. McNaughton owned the Pekin Times from 1927 to 1981.

Soldwedel graduated from Pekin Community High School in 1942. After spending a year attending the University of Illinois, Soldwedel transferred in 1943 to the University of Arizona where he graduated in 1946 with a degree in marketing.

Prior to his college years, in the summer of 1940, Luda and Donald met for the first time in Pekin while Luda was visiting family members. After dating for the next 5 years, the two married on June 15, 1946 and spent the next 61 years together.

In 1998, Soldwedel was inducted into the Arizona Newspaper Hall of Fame and was
honored with an Arizona Board of Regents Award. In 2002, he was inducted into the Arizona Business Hall of Fame. He served as the president of the University of Arizona Alumni Association in 1977 and was the president of the University of Arizona Foundation from 1989-91.

According to life long friend Ellen Paullin, who was the Managing Editor of The Pekin Daily Times during World War II, Soldwedel was a man who lived a life in an undiminished capacity.

“He was a real promoter of things. I last saw him two years ago and he always seemed energetic even though he had Parkinson’s,” said Paullin. “You just could not slow him down.”

Soldwedel is survived by his wife, Luda; a daughter, Ann Buxie; a son Joe Soldwedel; and three grandchildren.

Pekin Times

Pair connected to attorney’s death in court again

ROCKFORD – The man and woman tied to the investigation into the shooting death of Rockford attorney Gregory H. Clark were in court again Thursday.

Richard E. Wanke Jr., 46, and Diane M. Chavez, 49, appeared separately before Judge Joe McGraw — Wanke to get a new judge and public defender on a 2007 conviction and Chavez to have obstruction of justice charges related to the Clark case thrown out.

Winnebago County Public Defender Karen Sorensen told McGraw her office cannot take Wanke’s case because a friend of hers testified in a 1992 burglary sentencing against Wanke.

Winnebago County conflict attorney, David Caulk, was assigned to represent Wanke at his sentencing for the 2007 burglary conviction. McGraw said he would preside over the sentencing after Judge John Truitt stepped down last week, after police told him some information about the Clark homicide investigation and Wanke.

Wanke is due back in court Feb. 25.

Chavez, whose case also is before McGraw, will return to court in late February or early March. Chavez’s attorney Steven Lee plans to argue that Chavez’s obstruction of justice charge “doesn’t allege sufficient information to support the charge,” Lee said.

Police claim Chavez lied to them when they came to her home looking for Wanke on the day of shooting.

Wanke and Chavez are being held in the Winnebago County Jail and are linked to the police investigation into Clark’s Feb. 6 shooting death.

The remains were found shortly before 1:30 p.m. in the Downers Grove forest preserve. Recovery efforts went well into Thursday night, but Downers Grove police have not been able to identify the person or determine how long the remains had been in the woods as of Friday morning, Deputy Police Chief Jim Black said.

"It is badly decomposed. I would probably say it is all skeletal," Black said. "Ninety-five percent of the remains were covered with snow and ice."

Evidence found at the scene indicates the body is an adult male. Black declined to elaborate on the evidence but said the investigation indicates there is no relationship with the Stacy Peterson case out of Bolingbrook or the Lisa Stebic case out of Plainfield.

The body was found about a quarter-mile into the forest preserve in a heavily wooded area, according to Black. People generally do not walk on this trail during the winter, said Sgt. Howard Oller, of the DuPage County Forest Preserve District police.

The DuPage County coroner's office was called out to the scene, but work on recovering the body from the snow and ice had to be halted at about midnight Thursday after temperatures began to drop, Black said.

Lyman Woods still is open to the public, but the area where the body was found is closed off as investigators continue to thaw the ice Friday morning, Black said. A large red tent was placed over the remains.

"The thawing process is going relatively well and we are hoping to have most of the remains collected and turned over to the coroner's office by early this afternoon provided the thawing process continues to go well and the weather cooperates with us," Black said.

Kevin Stahr, Suburban Life Publications

Man sentenced to two years for attempted bribe of IRS official

PIASA – A man who tried to bribe an Internal Revenue Service officer was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison.

Jeffrey N. Darr, 49, of Piasa, was convicted in August for offering a $5,000 bribe to the IRS officer in 2006. U.S. Judge Jeanne Scott also ordered Darr to pay a fine of $6,000, serve three years supervised release upon completion of his prison sentence, and forfeit $3,000 in bribe money he gave the IRS officer.

Darr will begin his sentence on May 15.

A jury convicted Darr in August of offering a $5,000 bribe.

On Dec. 7, 2006, Darr gave the officer $3,000 and invited her to go boating with him, at which point he promised he would pay the remaining $2,000.

State Journal-Register

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